This Thursday (29) sees the 150th anniversary of the birth of Carl Duisberg, who was chief executive of Bayer AG for many years and intellectual father of IG Farben. The chemist carried significant responsibility for the global rise of the company. ... the former Bayer chief executive / Responsible for use of poison gas and forced labour / Coalition demands renaming of streets and removal of honorary citizenship

29th September 2011 sees the 150th anniversary of the birth of the former Bayer chief executive / Responsible for use of poison gas and forced labour / Coalition demands renaming of streets and removal of honorary citizenship

This Thursday sees the 150th anniversary of the birth of Carl Duisberg, who was chief executive of Bayer AG for many years and intellectual father of IG Farben. The chemist carried significant responsibility for the global rise of the company. During World War I he advocated the use of poison gas, supported the deportation of Belgian forced labourers and demanded the annexation of large areas in Eastern Europe. The pinnacle of Duisberg’s lifetime achievements was the merger of companies within the German chemical industry to create the conglomerate IG Farben.

Jan Pehrke from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers says: “Carl Duisberg literally walked over dead bodies for profit. Due to his responsibility for the use of poison gas, the exploitation of forced labourers and the close cooperation with the Nazi regime, the former Bayer chief executive is not suitable as a role model for future generations!". The Coalition demands the renaming of schools (e.g. Duisberg´s former high school in Wuppertal), streets (e.g. in Bonn, Krefeld, Dortmund and Leverkusen), as well as charitable Carl Duisberg centres. In a letter to the Mayor of Leverkusen, Reinhard Buchhorn, the network is furthermore asking for the removal of Duisberg´s honorary citizenship of Leverkusen.

Already at the end of the 19th century Carl Duisberg marketed heroin ruthlessly, as a supposedly harmless cough remedy. Back then Bayer promoted its 'wonder drugs' Aspirin and Heroin worldwide. When a scientist decried the addictive potential of heroin, Duisberg – he was at that point executive director at Bayer – remarked that one had to “silence the opponents”. Although the addictive dangers became obvious quickly, the corporation continued selling it profitably for many decades.

Carl Duisberg’s role in the exploitation of forced labourers during World War I is also of historic significance. In the autumn of 1916, Duisberg bemoaned the lack of workers and demanded the use of forced labourers with the claim "Open the large human pool of Belgium". The Interior Ministry of the German Reich picked up the proposal of the industry and arranged the deportation of 60,000 Belgians, which led to worldwide protests. The deportation is regarded as the predecessor of the much bigger slave labour programme implemented during World War II.

At the same time, Carl Duisberg developed - together with Fritz Haber - poison gases such as "Gruenkreuz” (phosgene) and “Mustard gas”, tested them on the front for the first time and pushed for their use – knowingly in breach of The Hague Land Warfare Convention. In Leverkusen Duisberg set up a school specifically for chemical warfare. Towards the end of the war Duisberg and Haber were on extradition lists by the allied forces and they feared prosecution as war criminals.

Carl Duisberg’s greatest success was the foundation of IG Farben in 1925, where he was appointed head of the supervisory board. Duisberg had organized the merger of companies within the German chemical industry to form the largest European corporation at the time over many decades.

Duisberg’s stance towards the Weimar Republic was hostile. He organized industry donations to conservative and nationalistic parties, including to the Nazis, from 1930 onwards. In 1931 Duisberg demanded: “The German people constantly cries out for a Führer who will liberate it from its unbearable situation. If a man comes along now who has proved to have no inhibitions, we must follow him unconditionally." In the same year Duisberg demanded, in a speech before the Chamber of Commerce in Dusseldorf, the creation of a European economic area under German domination.

In return for the millions in donations, the Nazis guaranteed to buy synthetic fuel and rubber from IG Farben. From then onwards no other corporation collaborated so closely with the Third Reich. Carl Duisberg crowed on the occasion of his retirement: "I am looking forward to my retirement under our Führer Adolf Hitler." Hitler in return offered his condolences on Duisberg's death in 1935: "With him the German chemical industry has lost one of its first pioneers and a successful leader, and the German industry one of its great organisers. His name will live on honorably in Germany.”

Jan Pehrke from the Coalition against BAYER Dangers concludes: “Carl Duisberg was a convinced nationalist, a man characterized by patriarchal imperiousness and a fierce enemy of trade unions. One can only describe Duisberg as a ‘criminal genius’, who subjugated morals to profits throughout his life." Since the 1980s the Coalition has been concerned with the history of Bayer and, amongst others, published the book “Von Anilin bis Zwangsarbeit – Die Geschichte der IG Farben“ (From Aniline to Forced Labour – The History of IG Farben). Translation: Susanne Schuster (Tlaxcala)

see also: => Hell's Cartel: IG Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine => Jew, Christian team up to stress German firms' culpability for war horrors => Campaign NEVER AGAIN! => IG Farben: Stock of former Nazi chemicals giant to be delisted